Category Archives: Potawatomi

bad bliss

10 Friday May 2019

Posted by in Erotic, Poetry, Potawatomi, sonnet, Translation

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Don’t be jealous of the dead. Their yearning
is like yours. “Ggiskonyé ne?” That pain

filling all her voice asks. “Are you getting
undressed?” I take her absinthe and regain

all those old tensions, those itches. To kiss
a ghost is to feel her raw tingle glow

in your flesh, echo in the sky, bad bliss
from the bowels of the earth. She has no

bowels but — she’s horny as a hellcat
with two cunts. I have been moonstruck before.

When at last I undressed before you that
was mad but you had said more, always more.

The dead are like us: loving cock and cunt
and all that’s odd, loving what is different.

][][

NOTE:
In the Bodéwadmi (Potawatomi) language, “ggiskonyé ne?” translates as, “are you getting undressed?”

translating lorca

14 Sunday Apr 2019

Posted by in Poetry, Potawatomi, Spanish, Translation

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“VERDE, QUE TE QUIERO, VERDE.”
“Skebgezo, gmenwénmen, skebgezo.”
“Green, I want you, green.”
Potawatomi is an oral language meaning that it has only been until (relatively) recently that a dictionary using English has been made available to people like me who just want to learn the language because it sounds beautiful. To complicate things there are both Southern and Northern dialects that have their own vocabulary. I live in the north but my on-line language classes are from a southern band (Citizen Nation) who, logically, use southern terms. Today I am struggling over how to say green in Potawatomi in the context of the first line of Federico Garcia Lorca’s poem, Romance Sonambulo. “Verde, que te quiero, verde.” In Potawatomi the world is broken up into things that are animate (all that which is living, all which is spiritual, etc.) and inanimate (man-made things, etc.) The green that Lorca addresses (verde) embodies both hopeful and thwarted desire. I’ve always seen it as something otherworldly and alive. Animate green. One Potawatomi word-list I found on-line from Wisconsin says that green is, “eshkebok.” I liked that, since I could rhyme it with sleepwalk which plays nicely with the title of Lorca’s poem (Ballad of the Sleepwalker). However a different word list (this one from Oklahoma) says that green is, “skebgezo.” Perhaps it’s that regional difference I don’t really understand yet? Perhaps one is animate and the other not? I don’t know. The frustration of learning by oneself is that there is no one to correct my errors as I go along. Que te quiero (how I want you) is easier since I could find the actual phrase in Potawatomi in several sources. It is: “gmenwénmen.” I’m not at a place in my studies where I can keep translating the poem but one day I will. One day I will translate all of Lorca’s work and a brand new world will open up, just like that. I am endlessly excited to see a new world.

enough

14 Sunday Apr 2019

Posted by in Erotic, Poetry, Potawatomi, sonnet, Translation

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Soft or hard, purple or brown, my mouth takes
it deep your tongue tongues it, crests it. Our lips

purse as we start to suck, as her cunt quakes
and salt droplets her skin. With acid trips,

frigatrix fingers and chronic, we shared
a bed and your sister’s ruined body —

cancer had left her rickety and scared.
Deep love requires desire. The three

of us odd things. You say orgasms must
be the cure. I say with enough pleasure

we will hold on. But love, debanawen,
even death, nbowen, is neither just

nor fair. It just is. Like how we kiss her.
We pass the bong. We do it again.

NOTE:
Today marks Week 2 in my studies of the Potawatomi language. I want to learn it because it is beautiful to my ear. My goal is to one day translate English and Spanish poetry into Potawatomi, to help expand its edges, to make this world a little more interesting to be in. That said I am going to be working on this project for a long time to come. I’m constantly getting my verb tenses mixed up, which is why this poem is using only simple nouns. Love, in Potawatomi, is, “Debanawen,” while Death is, “Nbowen.” I hope soon to be able to form more complex sentences in my sonnets but today I’m being kind to myself. I’m a slow learner.

ndekwem

04 Thursday Apr 2019

Posted by in Poetry, Potawatomi, sonnet, Translation

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Dreams are coming fast these days. It started

with two — “wasabzo o seksi” — deer eyes

 

shining in the dark. Antlers caked with blood.

In the dark, underneath, curved hips and thighs

 

announce something else. I can’t even say,

“Ndekwem,” my Sister, but I need to.

 

You—whose daughters are lost, who men betray,

who I don’t understand—I’ll wait for you

 

by the tree that bears your name. Dreams of two

eyes, moon-mad bright, means that you’re drawing near—

 

In the dark, underneath all the abuse

and fear, I wish that I could talk. To do

 

something useful. Deer that is not a deer

at long last let me be of some damn use.

 

NOTE:

Violence against Indigenous women is at an epidemic level. According to armingsisters, “It is estimated that 1 in 3 Indigenous women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. However, a study done by Amnesty International found that 90% of all Indigenous women have experienced sexual assault.”

Organizations such as Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women USA have made it their mission to find the staggering numbers who go missing across the United States and Canada each year. I say this because I want you to understand why I am (slowly) learning Neshnabé (Potawatomi language). I live near two sovereign Potawatomi tribes in West Michigan, Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band (near Gun Lake) and ‎Pokagon Band (near Dowagiac). To understand a problem you first have to be able to understand the language that it is spoken in and I do not think English will be the tool to help fight against domestic violence.

The words that I use in the poem are Potawatomi.  “Ndekwem,” means, “my sister,” and, “wasabzo o seksi,” talks about deer eyes (seksi) shining in the dark. I might be a slow student but I am confident that once I understand then I too can, “be of some damn use.”